SC Yellow Dogs

Is SC turning purple? or even blue? Yes, Dan Hoover I believe it is.

Genuine S.C. presidential race looms

Is South Carolina really turning from red to purple? Or even blue?

The depth and intensity of the Palmetto State campaign that handlers of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama say they’re committed to will soon be apparent, as a reality or a bluff.

If it includes a full-blown staff of field organizers, vocal campaign spokesman, in-state advertising and even an occasional visit by the candidate or his wife, Michelle, South Carolina will cease to be a flyover state, one that national Democrats skip in favor of more hospitable territory.

Not that Obama doesn’t have an organization already in place. After all, what were all those pre-presidential primary beauty and barbershop meet-ups for anyway? They certainly didn’t stop after he routed Hillary Clinton here in a pivotal victory.

Obama ahead?

Last week, a Zogby Research Poll showed Obama with a 42-41 percentage point lead over McCain here. It’s been a long time since a Democrat topped a Republican in a South Carolina presidential poll.

The numbers appear to illustrate just one of the difficulties facing McCain: Bob Barr, the former conservative Republican congressman from Georgia running on the Libertarian Party ticket, drew 6 percent.

But South Carolina is a tall order for any Democrat. After all, since John F. Kennedy in 1960, only Jimmy Carter has carried the state for its once dominant party, and that was 32 years ago.

Democrats are banking on what they see as growing disgust with President Bush in what was once “Bush Country,” fueled by a faltering economy, $4-plus gas, an unpopular war in Iraq, and a desire for change as represented by Obama, a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois.

Add intense support among blacks for Obama, new-found enthusiasm among young people, plus less than heartfelt support for McCain from the GOP’s conservative wing and Obama’s allies see the recipe for a historic upset in the GOP’s conservative heartland.

Could be ploy

Of course, it could be a strategic move by a campaign that has money to burn while facing opposition that doesn’t.

One theory goes like this:
* South Carolina was not among the 12 red states his campaign initially identified as ones where it would go head-to-head with Republican Sen. John McCain. Then, last week, Obama allies here announced that the national campaign had committed to a big push in South Carolina, something few Democrats in recent decades have tried.

* Turning South Carolina may not be within the realm of possibility, but with a huge financial edge, Obama can afford to move in, hoping to suck McCain into a fight that would drain his more limited resources from genuine battleground states.

Fifty-state strategy

“The 50-state strategy is for real,” said former Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges last week after returning from a meeting at Obama’s Chicago headquarters.

Remember, a guy named Mike Dukakis once pledged a 50-state campaign that ended up being about 48 states short.

It’s going to be different this time, says Dick Harpootlian, a former state party chairman who joined Hodges for the pilgrimage to Chicago.

“They have an understanding and appreciation for South Carolina,” Harpootlian said, “and don’t forget, we’re the ones who put him back on track after New Hampshire. “We’re pleased, we’ve been ignored here for 30 years.”

What’s changed?

Changing times

Several things, Harpootlian said, from a grim national mood seeping into South Carolina to Obama’s huge and emotional presidential primary turnout here to his campaign’s abundance of financial resources that makes a seemingly long-shot effort appear feasible.

“They have the resources for 50 states,” he said. “What they point out, and it makes some sense, is that it would be wasting resources to not do so (in South Carolina). They’re going to have heavy television in the North Carolina and Georgia markets — Asheville, Charlotte, Wilmington, Augusta and Savannah — and you’ll get a huge bleedover just from the media efforts in those two states. Put a little money in the center of South Carolina and you’ve covered all the media markets,” Harpootlian said.

Obama is expected to fiercely contest North Carolina and Georgia, where the latest polls show him within 2 percentage points of McCain.

Working for Obama, and perhaps down-ballot Democrats, is that this is that rare presidential year when the state party is embracing, not running from, the nominee.

There are skeptics.

Republicans, of course, who cite the party’s overwhelming dominance here and victories in 10 of the last 11 presidential elections. That’s matched by Democrats, who scoff at a paradigm of the past, fixated on a model that no longer works.

McCain’s decision

There’s Larry Sabato, author and presidential scholar at the University of Virginia, who says that “it’s fair to say that if the presidential race is even close in South Carolina, then Obama is running away with it nationally. But I’ve seen no indication yet that it is especially tight in the Palmetto State. I still count this as one of McCain’s base states.”

Although Sabato agrees that Obama’s camp has the finances and personnel to broadly expand the playing field and “play mental games with the McCain campaign, I doubt McCain will bite on this one.”

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs has denied the campaign is anything but serious about winning red states. Gibbs, the spokesman for South Carolina Democratic U.S. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings’ 1998 re-election campaign, told Newsweek, “There’s no time for head fakes.”

Beyond Gibbs, Obama’s national campaign has more than a little South Carolina flair.

Palmetto flair

A number of Hodges’ 1998 and 2002 campaign allies are working for Obama, including John Carson, who ran Hodges’ get-out-the-vote effort, and is national field director, and Rick Wade, who was on the ballot for secretary of state in 2002, and is national outreach coordinator to the black community. Craig Schirmer, who headed Democrats’ coordinated campaign in South Carolina in 1998 and returned in 2007 to run Obama’s primary campaign, plus those in North Carolina and Wisconsin, is a key player.

“They know South Carolina,” Hodges says.

Democratic consultant Bill Carrick recalls 1992 when Bush 41 was pressed to hold the South Atlantic states against then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. He did, but it didn’t matter.

If that repeats itself, McCain “is in deep trouble because he just doesn’t have the money to compete in as many states as Obama. The money McCain spends in the 2000 and 2004 red states will take money from the traditional battleground states like Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.